Nate Silver has a “good update” for Kamala Harris 4 days before the election

With four days until Election Day, statistician Nate Silver said his latest model represents a “good update” for Vice President Kamala Harris in the extraordinarily close presidential election, even as former President Donald Trump remains the front-runner.

Silver, the forecaster who runs the Silver Bulletin, released the first modeling study for November on Friday and found Harris enjoying growing support in Michigan and Wisconsin, two crucial swing states.

Harris' clearest path to victory would be to hold the three battleground blue wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Barring any surprise results elsewhere, those 44 Electoral College votes would bring the Democratic nominee to exactly 270 if she also secures the other 226 Electoral College votes that The Cook Political Report predicts she will win, and 270 for the win.

Trump campaigned hard in the three states, knowing he would likely have to win at least one of them to secure the election. Polls have been very close in all three states, with FiveThirtyEight's poll tracker currently showing Harris leading Michigan and Wisconsin by less than a point, while Trump leads Pennsylvania by 0.4 points – after Harris previously beat him in that one State had led.

Since the 1988 election, the three states have always voted for the same candidate and are not divided. The winner of these states often wins the presidency, with the exception of Democratic candidate Al Gore, who won all three but lost the 2000 presidential election to President George W. Bush. Trump had already won all three states in 2016 and was recaptured by President Biden in 2020.

Silver's latest model shows Harris gaining 0.4 points in Michigan over last week's model, putting him ahead of Trump by 1.2 percentage points, 48.4 percent to Trump's 47.2 percent. In Wisconsin, Harris gained 0.2 points from last week, gaining 48.6 percent in the state to Trump's 47.8 percent.

Trump remains ahead in Pennsylvania in the model, 48.4 percent to Harris' 47.8 percent. The Silver Bulletin forecast predicts Pennsylvania will go Republican by 0.7 points.

The Silver Bulletin's latest forecast shows that Trump is expected to win the election with 53.8 percent, while Harris will win with 48.8 percent. FiveThirtyEight's forecasting model estimates Trump has a 51 percent chance of winning the election, compared to Harris' 48 percent.

Newsweek reached out to Harris and Trump's campaign via email Friday seeking comment.

In a post on The surveys are not included in the latest model.

In the post, he wrote, “Reassuring polls for Harris in the sense that the race likely remains undecided.”

The latest Marist polls show Harris leading by 3 points in Michigan and by 2 points in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Their lead in all three states is within the polls' margin of error.

In Michigan, 1,356 registered voters were surveyed between October 27 and October 30, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points. Similarly, the Wisconsin poll polled 1,444 registered voters at the same time, which had the same margin of error. The Pennsylvania poll surveyed 1,558 registered voters on the same data, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

Correction 11/2/24 1:31 p.m. ET: This article has been corrected to note that the Marist polls were not included in the model.